The integration between panels, monuments and divisors along a cabin interior of a transport vehicle, e.g., an aircraft cabin, presents quality problems since major gaps and elevational steps can become visible which in turn create the need for numerous adjustments. These gaps are not however necessarily visible when the interior cabin panels are initially installed during aircraft fabrication while on the ground as all of the panel components and parts will be installed together in a perfectly trimmed relationship. Gaps can and normally do become visible however between installed panels as a consequence of fuselage deformation during normal during flight conditions, e.g., when the fuselage is pressurized.
One traditional well known concept that is widely used to hide or minimize these problems involves adjusting and trimming the finished panels while the aircraft is on the ground, and then to re-adjust the panels again during flight conditions. This re-adjustment of the finished panels helps to achieve the best fit performance for fuselage variation and interior components. However, even this conventional practice still allows for the possibility of non consistent gaps to be visible which are not aesthetically pleasant, while also wasting numerous assembly hours.
Another common alternative is to simply cover the integration region between adjacent interior panels with an overlap finished panel to thereby hide the gap variations. These gap filler panels, however, do not provide perfect matching between surfaces and typically experience serious bonding and/or adhesion issues which require frequent replacement.
What has been needed in this art, therefore, is an assembly of interior passenger cabin panels that is adaptive to different operational environments of the vehicle. It is towards providing such a need that the embodiments of the present invention are directed.